The Happiest Place on Earth
by Serenitychan13
Summary: Warning for crack fic. Natasha is given instructions to, with Sam accompanying for backup, take Steve and Bucky on a covert mission that takes them down the East coast. If she doesn't kill them getting there, this might just be the trip of a lifetime for all involved! In other words, it's Black Widow and Falcon babysitting Steve and Bucky at Disneyworld. Rated for language.
1. Eyes on the Road

The Happiest Place on Earth

Ch. 1 – Eyes on the Road

Natasha Romanoff clutched the wheel of the large green Suburban and growled at traffic. Agent Coulson's voice rang in her ears. "Just go with it!" he said. "It'll be fun!" he said. "They'll really enjoy it!" he said. "You might like it too!" The red-haired former KGB espionage agent seriously considered _accidentally _adding Phil's name to one of the lists of people to harass. She had been behind the wheel of this vintage tank for six hours – that's already six hours more than she thought she could stand. Director Fury, surely in his infinite wisdom, had insisted on the older model. Harder to identify, looked like everything else, that all probably went into it. But the steering grabbed, the brakes sounded like power drills being sat on, and the air conditioner worked half-heartedly at best. For passing through Fayetteville, North Carolina in the middle of June, that sucked. Sure, it probably had every single safety feature SHIELD had to offer and some that Stark idiot stuck in just for fun… They probably couldn't be safer in Air Force One at this point!

However, if there was any bodily harm to the vehicle's occupants to be worried about, Natasha couldn't be all that sure she wouldn't do it herself! Sam was an easy enough passenger – thank every god she didn't even believe in for that. He'd picked up a load of car magazines, flight journals, and a guidebook to the parks and settled quietly to read in the front seat. Out of habit, he scanned the surroundings for traffic hang-ups, traffic cops, and construction. Mercifully, he remained quiet about most things, given that the GPS alerted them to every little thing and apparently couldn't be shut off. Yeah, Sam Wilson couldn't have made a more ideal passenger! With this thought, Natasha stole a poisonous glance up at her rear-view mirror.

Right out the gate, she had considered handcuffing both of them to their seats, for as much their safety as anyone else's. The one behind her driver's side seat, with his perfect blonde hair and clear blue eyes, had not actually gone to sleep last night. _Some _traitor – she heavily suspected her significant other – had gifted him with an iPod full of _that_ music and speakers to plug into. She'd beat him mercilessly for it later. About five in the morning, everyone had been awakened by a rousing chorus of "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me." Immediately after that, Natasha had popped her first Excedrin and hoped she would somehow drown in the shower. The one in the back passenger seat stared suspiciously out of the window, his uncut brown hair obscuring narrowed eyes. His response to the Great Pirate Lord of the Five AM Wake-Up Call had been first a panic attack, then rage. Thankfully, it turned out to be the special kind of rage reserved for one's best friend, particularly when said best friend awakens one at an ungodly hour. Both of them sported a few bruises from the encounter.

Natasha reached for her energy drink and chugged heavily at the memory of Director Fury's entirely-too-joyful smile and his lingering call of "Y'all have fun!" She could still count today as a good day, she reasoned – that was only her fourth in six hours.

"Eyes on the road," reminded Sam, looking up from his magazine and flicking his eyes round to be sure no one had seen her swerve slightly.

He quailed momentarily at the death-stare from the driver's seat and shrugged back into his reading.

* * *

"STEVE!" shrieked Natasha as they saw the first exit sign for Savannah. "IF I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO TURN YOUR HEADPHONES DOWN ONE MORE TIME, I'M GOING TO STRANGLE YOU WITH THEM!"

The next four hours of driving, plus three rest stops – caffeine one hell of a diuretic effect – had seen the redhead consume an energy drink per hour, plus three double cheeseburgers. Her hands shook and her usually-perfect hair stood almost on end from the humidity. Bucky had somehow stuck all of the windows in the "down" position. Everything stank of paper mill and river garbage. Sam had shut his headphones off entirely and began using them entirely as earplugs. About an hour ago, Captain America and the infamous Winter Soldier had apparently reverted to their eleven-year-old selves. An hour minus five minutes ago, Natasha Romanoff's eye started to twitch. And that wasn't even beginning to count the trip through the McDonald's drive-thru. For some reason, Fury had been very specific about not letting those two out of the car except for public rest areas. Pilot Wilson sneaked a look in the back seat and cringed – nah, he couldn't _possibly _imagine why…

And then it started to rain.

Oh, of course it was just one of those things that happened in the South in the summertime. Sometimes the clouds, out of anyone's control – even SHIELD's, but they were working on that – the clouds would just sort of get together and explode on everything. They had passed through Brunswick a while ago, and on this part of I-95, one could expect to see a whole lot of nothing. Traffic had ground to a groaning rather than screeching halt as visibility reduced to almost zilch. Sam had finally managed to talk Natasha into grabbing a couple giant bottles of water at their last stop for gas. She had downed one in approximately five minutes, nonchalantly chucking the empty bottle at Steve. The super-soldier had gotten his music stuck on repeat, "It's a Small World" echoing squeakily from his earbuds. After the next one, traffic nearly stopped entirely. That had been about forty minutes ago and now the spy's back teeth were floating.

"Eyes on the road, Romanoff!" yelled Sam, clutching the _oh shit _handle as she swung dangerously around a stalled Prius at the last second. "What are you doing?"

Natasha glared at him and stabbed a finger in the direction of the nearest exit.

"Oh, no… No, no, no!" called Steve from the back. "I clearly heard Director Fury say…"

The large SUV lurched horribly as Natasha jerked it into the next lane over.

"Say nothing!" she yelled in the direction of the back seat.

Bucky clutched his midsection and stuck his head out the window to catch the rain for a second.

"Can you quit being an Eagle Scout for two seconds?" he groused, sounding ill. "She has to pee and she's getting off the exit!"

Steve punched Bucky for being crass, swearing himself as his knuckles connected with metal where a bicep should have been. The brunette gave him a shit-eating grin and administered a metal-handed pinch to Steve's side. Before either Natasha or Sam could say another word, the two overgrown man-children had devolved into a flurry of poorly-aimed whacks at each other. Wrappers from the earlier Mickey D's run had gone sailing back and forth, flying out of the open windows. At least with the windows already being stuck, Sam thought silently, they didn't have to worry about breaking those. A knee connected sharply with the back of his seat and he let out a "Hey!" in protest. Turning around, he didn't care that he added fuel to the fire by lobbing a magazine at them. Grinding her teeth, Natasha wondered if rolling the SUV clear over to the exit might quiet them down some…

The green Suburban might possibly have jumped over those last three cars before the exit – with SHIELD's features, sometimes it could get hard to tell. One way or another, though, the party of four found the vehicle rolling up the exit and stopped at a stoplight. They seemed to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There hadn't been a sign to indicate where a gas station or anything else might be. The remains of what had been one of those signs looked like it had been hit by several trucks, the actual sign bit having been removed by GDOT presumably a while ago. One of the legs stuck morosely out of several inches of muddy water. With the vehicle at rest, three occupants became acutely aware of the "oog" noise produced by the fourth.

"Oh God, Bucky, no!" yelled Steve, yanking out his earbuds. "Do it out the window!"

Bucky tore right through his seat belt and stuck the top half of his body out of the window. No one particularly tried to hide their disgusted faces at the sound that followed. After that, the odor of cheeseburger with onions in reverse on wet asphalt assaulted the Winter Soldier like bad karma. The beep of the "seat belt off" alert seemed to pierce right through Natasha's eardrums. Her eye twitched dangerously again as she squeezed her knees together. Sam fished through the glove box and, without looking, offered a travel pack of Kleenex over his shoulder. Steve took it on Bucky's behalf as the brunette continued to ralph up most of his digestive system. After several minutes, during which the light _did not change_, Bucky hauled himself back inside and flopped miserably into his seat. Steve reached behind him, caught hold of the car blanket, and chucked it at his best friend. In mere seconds, the former Winter Soldier had cocooned himself in the Polarfleece, glaring at everyone.

"UGH! CHANGE ALREADY!" Natasha bellowed very suddenly at the red light. "Fuck… Fuck… Fuck…"

After about thirty F-bombs, the light had still not changed.

"Natasha, don't…" Steve started.

He couldn't get the rest of his words out before Natasha's booted foot hit the accelerator and she swung the hulking SUV onto the slick, poorly maintained country road. Bucky let out a wet-sounding burp and swallowed hard, but had managed to stick his arms firmly to his sides with the blankets. Steve yelled and stuck an arm out the window to hold onto the vehicle's roof. Sam just covered his face with one hand and muttered "Jesus take the wheel..." before shouting "Away from her!" Only Natasha's years of training enabled her not to spin the SUV several times in the turn. Through the driving rain, she could see her goal – a forlorn-looking Texaco station on the edge of a thick pine forest. Today was one of those days for her, in that whether she was starting or stopping, her foot would hit the floor. Her passengers protested vocally again as the Suburban practically leapt down the street. Okay, they _might _have skidded sideways into that parking lot…

"I'll be right back!" Natasha announced, trying to keep the frantic note out of her voice.

Her hands were shaking so badly that she missed the door handle several times, and then it took a few more good tries before she could get the door open at all. She swatted Steve's assisting hand out of the way, kicked the door open, and bolted away into the rain towards the outbuilding. Right away, the three men remaining in the car noticed something very much not right. While they could see the little man on the blue sign indicating the men's room, the door that should have been marked "women" or "ladies" was nowhere to be found. Natasha, they observed, had noticed this fact as well, but she squared her shoulders and march-waddled right in.

* * *

Natasha found herself standing in four inches of water that she would just rather not think about. In the first stall, a very large woman was trying to coach a terrified little girl into using the facilities. Privately, the ex-KGB agreed with the little girl's howls. Neither of the stalls had doors on them. However, when one has to go _that badly_, one tends to go wherever one can. For a moment, she briefly considered sprinting out the door and making a break for the woods. But none of the guys would ever let her live that down, so that was most definitely not an option. Trying very hard not to take a deep breath, she edged into the open handicapped stall.

Okay, that wasn't so bad once she got it over with…

She tried to ignore the water splashing around her ankles as she hit the soap dispenser three times – nothing happened. The other one was broken as well. Her hand sanitizer remained in her purse, which she had not bothered to bring in with her. As she stared into the spotty and broken mirror, she considered herself just exceptionally lucky that there had been barely enough toilet paper. Growling and cursing under her breath, she straightened her back, determined to keep some pride, and left. Pride took an immediate back seat to sprinting back to the Suburban and practically leaping inside. The men in the vehicle all looked mildly alarmed. Here had come the Black Widow, charging towards the SUV and now sitting in the driver's seat dripping wet and wild-eyed.

"That…" she pronounced after a long moment. "… was _foul_!"

Sam felt he might lose a hand if he reached one over to pat her shoulder.

"Uh… Eyes on the road, Romanoff?" he offered as a measure of comfort.

He totally expected it when she punched him.


	2. Checking In While Mentally Checked Out

The Happiest Place on Earth

Ch. 2 – Checking In While Mentally Checked Out

Natasha would never be sure, for the whole rest of her life, how she did it, but she had done it. Somehow, she had totally managed to get Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Sam Wilson from Washington D.C. to Orlando, Florida without killing anyone. It had almost come to a head when Steve had oh-so-innocently asked if just maybe she'd had enough energy drinks. Only due to his super-soldier abilities had he been able to dodge the seven empty cans launched at his head. He wasn't going to begin to ask how she could aim that well behind her. Bucky grunted in discomfort from his blanket cocoon/straitjacket, still a little green around the face, as the SUV pulled onto the blessed turn road. Every eye in the vehicle lit up at least a little at the sight of the giant yellow arch. Red letters read "Walt Disney World" with white ones underneath saying "Where Dreams Come True." Even Sam had to sit up and lean forward to get a good look at the arch.

The redhead behind the wheel had to smile through her mad case of the shakes, melted eye makeup, and fried hair at the scene in the back seat behind her. Steve had leaned as far to his right as he could, straining hard at his seat belt, and taken Bucky by the arm. With his free hand, he pointed at the arch above them like a little kid, his face all sorts of animated. Bucky, still wrapped in the car blanket, couldn't help but humor his all-of-a-sudden-ten-again best friend.

"Look, Buck!" Steve almost whispered, his voice just this side of reverent. "We're _here_!"

The sounds of "It's A Small World" still squeaked out of the earbuds that now dangled from Steve's neck, but now everyone could sort of accept it. Bucky wriggled around, attempting to extract himself from the blanket and follow Steve's pointing hand. Every twenty-five yards or so, there stood a giant billboard, some of them featuring moving parts, each with a different Disney attraction on it. Steve absolutely had to comment on every single one of them. The Tower of Terror looked like something they just _had _to go on! So did Splash Mountain! So did Kali River Rapids! On any other day in the history and future of ever, Natasha would have found this boyish enthusiasm adorable. Now, she had to stop herself from biting right into the steering wheel out of frustration. When she looked in the rear-view mirror, she could see Bucky looking around, looking way more confused than impressed. She had to hand it to them both – this had to be way different than the Disney they would be used to. Sam, for his part, seemed to have lost his mind entirely and had started humming along with "It's A Small World." His magazines lay discarded in the passenger-side floorboard.

Natasha followed the main Disney through-way with the other steady traffic. Directions beyond this point seemed to be pretty self-explanatory. Everything had a sign, and not just with names on the signs – these signs actually had great big arrows on them, explaining where to go! Sam had tuned out Steve's running commentary and begun to look for the sign pointing to the Contemporary Resort. He had at least heard of that one – it was one of the Monorail resorts from the television commercials. Disney had never really been a thing for Sam growing up, and he hated to think what Natasha had been exposed to at the age that most girls were picking a favorite Princess. He stole a look in back at Bucky's first furtive smile of the whole trip. Okay, now he could kind of see what made Fury think this was a good idea.

"I have absolutely no idea what any of these are," Steve kept going on, his hand still gripping Bucky's arm as if it were not made of metal. "But I want to go on every single one of them!"

Bucky stuck his head out the window, grateful that the rain had stopped, and let the still-cool-but-not-for-long breeze do something about his still-sloshing digestive system. He saw around them pine woods, large ponds, small ponds, medium ponds, cars, and more woods. The last time he had seen this many trees… Well, it was best not to think about the last time he saw this many trees. This was supposed to be the happiest place on earth, they told him. His eyes widened as traffic slowed down almost to a complete stop to let a deer trot sedately across the road. He didn't think he'd ever seen a deer in person before! Not a live one, anyway.

"Steve, did you see that?" he whispered, pointing out the front windshield after extricating his right arm from the blanket.

The super-soldier nodded and watched the creature run off into the pine trees. Steve started to scan the road as the vehicle continued down the road. Everything looked so natural, but still so incredibly clean! There was no trash, no roadkill… It all looked just this side of perfect! He looked over at Bucky, still recovering from being various degrees of carsick for twelve-plus hours. His brain had been recalibrated by SHIELD (besides Barton hitting him with a pipe), but he still had recovery to do. It had all been going the way Dr. Banner said it was supposed to. The outbursts of temper, fits of confusion and anger and sadness, plus all his body systems rebelling every once in a while… But all of it had started to diminish to the point that Bucky was usually safe to bring out in public. Steve suspected it may have been Coulson's idea at first, but Fury's directive had been to bring him here.

Natasha just wanted out of this vehicle! She couldn't stand to let any of the guys drive – frankly, she wasn't sure if Bucky _should _ be allowed to drive – and now she just wanted to park it. As soon as Sam indicated to her the mini-exit with "Disney's Contemporary Resort" on it, she almost screamed. Three smaller cars and a Prius had to slam their brakes on to avoid the furious redhead as she calmly righted the wheel and glanced at her driver's side mirror.

"My exit…" she told the reflections of vehicles behind her.

Yes, the SHIELD agent known as Black Widow had some serious vehicular cabin fever. She sped along the small highway, grinding her teeth against Steve's continued exclamations. Upon investigation in the rearview mirror, Bucky had started to look pained again, leaning towards the still-open window. Natasha rotated the wheel quite suddenly and peeled the Suburban, which looked rather tired itself on a look in the reflective windows, into the Contemporary's parking lot. Sam, who of the four of them still had his cranium best attached to his scapulae, felt sorry for the four cars in front of them. A powder-blue Toyota Previa sat at the front of the line, under the covered temp-parking zone. Steve stuck his head out the window to watch in fascination as the family unloaded with the bellhops' help.

A man, a lady, and two teenage girls came part-staggering, part-tumbling, part-climbing out of the van, which seemed to have seen better days. The man folded his arms and looked grouchy, keeping a careful eye on the bellhops and loading things onto the gold dolly. They seemed to have packed half their lives into the mini-van. The lady looked excessively relieved to be back on solid ground – a feeling Sam identified with. One of the teenage girls had a teddy bear in her arms, skinny legs sticking out of jean shorts, and appeared pathologically unable to cease moving for upwards of point-two seconds. The second teenager, in long jeans and a red T-shirt, looked ready to kill the first one. Steve and Bucky, who had put his head back out the window just in case, could hear the girl with the bear singing. Natasha looked ready to ram her way to the front of the line. Damn the Previa, damn the two Hondas behind that, and damn anything else that happened to get between her and her destination today!

Even with the teenage girl zipping around like some sort of magic elf, the family got their belongings loaded in. The next three vehicles were nowhere near as eventful. The first Honda contained a couple who appeared to be honeymooning. After that, both following cars had families with children. Natasha ground her teeth at the representatives from the "stroller brigade." If she so much as heard a peep for the rest of today, she was abandoning Sam with the boys and going for a martini. Soon enough, it came to be their turn and she eased the lurching SUV forward as best she could. The antenna scraped on the clearance sign and twanged loudly.

"Welcome to Disney's Contemporary Resort, ma'am!" a young man bearing the name tag of _Dave _practically sang. Natasha wanted to punch him right in the face, but refrained. Dave asked her to pull up and then said, "Let me get someone to help you with your luggage!"

Immediately, two young men and a young lady appeared close by and Natasha popped the back hatch. Sam checked the perimeter out of habit and cursed under his breath at the sticky passenger-side door handle before opening it on the second try. Steve clambered out of the back driver's-side seat and twisted round so that his back produced a sickening round of crunching. Bucky looked sick again, just leaning there with his head out the window. The young lady in the Contemporary uniform extended a hand to open the back passenger door, causing the former Winter Soldier to startle slightly. He sat up and put his hand round the door handle. Both of them pulling at once confused the mechanism and the door got stuck.

"You… you really don't have to do that," he told the young lady, wondering if his attempt at smiling at her made him look as frightening as he felt inwardly it did. A quick scan and he found her name tag. "But thank you, Sylvie."

Sylvie blushed to the roots of her prettily-twisted hair and thanked him in return, confusing him briefly, before she skittered away to help Natasha with the luggage in back. Much like the family with the two teenagers, it seemed that this foursome had brought an inordinately large pile with them. When it wasn't a life-or-death situation, the used-to-be-Russian woman lacked the ability to pack light. Steve hadn't been sure what exactly to bring, despite the briefing – he had never been to Florida – so he had just stuck one of everything in a suitcase and hoped that was that. Sam had been once as a kid, so into the bag went every pair of shorts he owned, T-shirts, and six pairs of Nikes. Most of Bucky's gear had medical paraphernalia stuck away in it. Mercifully, Natasha and Pepper had guided him through going jeans shopping. Neither of them could talk him out of that terrible Hawai'ian shirt that lay proudly on top of his T-shirt and button-down collection. With the help of Disney's expert staff, everything found its way onto the dolly.

Natasha excused herself from the boys, praying to any deity that might still listen to her that they couldn't get up to anything in the ten minutes it should take to check in. Steve had gotten into an amiable argument with Dave about carrying his own bags. Sam had gone fishing through the front seat for a magazine he hadn't finished on the ride. Sylvie kept sneaking peeks at Bucky, who just stood there looking very lost. A mental checklist reminded her that all the boys had their park tickets on their persons, all had fully charged cell phones, and Steve wasn't letting Bucky out of his sight. Oh yeah, there was nothing they could damage too badly in the next sixth of an hour.

"Oh terrific…" she groused at the line in front of her.

As sometimes happened, the Contemporary seemed to be having some sort of system-wide computer snafu. Natasha was pretty sure that if she spoke to the right person, she could fix it herself in the better part of fifteen seconds, but Fury had been adamant about two things. One, do NOT leave the boys alone, and two, remain inconspicuous when at all humanly possible. She could hear the unspoken "motherfucker" at the end of that, so she figured she could do half of it. Sam had everything he needed to keep an eye on Bucky and Steve for… what seemed to be turning into twenty minutes. Even so, she kept checking her cell phone and glancing over her shoulder. Sylvie and another bellhop stood beside the three boys with their gigantic dolly full of stuff. Several other families stood about the same way, unable to move forward until everyone had their room keys. Polite smiles begged for forgiveness behind neatly-shined concierge counters as the attendants tried dutifully to sort out each problem. Children had started to whine. Moms and dads looked grumpy. Natasha noticed with combined understanding and annoyance that both sides of the counter seemed to be experiencing minor communication gaps.

It was then that Natasha Romanoff nearly wet herself in panic.

The last thing she saw was her boys' retreating backs and the flashing lights of one of the largest arcades she had ever seen in her life. She swore if this was Sam's idea, she was going to fling him off a building when he didn't have his Falcon wings on. Steve and Bucky wore identical grins – finally, something the both of them recognized. Sure, the games might be a bit updated, but nothing could keep two overgrown boys out of an arcade of any kind. Okay, Natasha thought, prioritize the problem-solving list here… Certainly Sam could take care of the three of them in there. What Fury didn't know couldn't hurt… well, anybody. Mentally, the redhead swore again, remembering that there pretty much wasn't anything Nick Fury didn't know about at least eventually. Still, deal with the angry director five states away later and deal with the computer gaffes/communication challenges now. After what seemed like forever, even to the most patient of secret agents, her turn came.

"Welcome to Disney's Contemporary Resort!" chirped a pretty, tiny young woman wearing a cream-colored hijab with the name tag Priti pinned to her blouse. She had a light British accent and smiled brilliantly. "My name is Priti and I apologize for the delay! May I ask what brings you to Walt Disney World for this visit? We have special occasion pins."

For the first in a very, very long time, Agent Natasha Romanoff's eyes softened and her voice _almost _shook.

"F- First visit," she told Priti after a rare false start. "Whole family's first visit."

Priti looked positively delighted and stretched out a hand to accept Natasha's ID and the SHIELD credit card – she appeared to find nothing unusual about this.

"And how many are in your party, Ms. Romanoff?" she asked before opening a drawer that featured an assortment of colorful pins.

Natasha had wondered about Fury's decision not to use aliases for this trip, but he just had this secret sort of assurance that nothing could happen to them here.

"Four," she told Priti, accepting the pins and stowing them away in her purse.

Priti typed in a few things, the computer spit up a couple of print-outs, and most everything seemed to be in order. Natasha actually felt a bit like shrinking in the light of the smile Priti seemed ready to gift the whole world with. The young woman handed back the ID and credit card and her face lit up like the Florida sun that had started to show again outside.

"Please call us at the front desk if we can do anything to make your stay at Disney's Contemporary Resort more enjoyable, Ms. Romanoff," she encouraged, still smiling brightly. She handed Natasha an envelope. "These are your room keys – they have been redesigned, so you don't have to worry about having them beside a cell phone or credit card. However, if a key deactivates without warning, call or come down to the front desk and we will issue a new one. There is one spare in the envelope for just in case."

Natasha thanked Priti and felt something quite strange in her chest as she barely heard the young woman wish her a "magical stay at Disney's Contemporary Resort." Never having been one to put much stock in magic or whatnot, the secret agent couldn't help smiling. She shot an apologetic glance over at Sylvie and the other bellhop. However, somehow, now it didn't seem quite so daunting to go in there and wrest the boys out of the arcade. She handed Sylvie the spare room key and slipped each of the hospitality agents a twenty, instructing them to just go up and drop everything off. After Manhattan, Hydra, _and_ beating Clint senseless for hitting Bucky with a pipe, this would be easy. She pulled out her cell phone and half-trotted off to locate Sam. The other two couldn't have gone far.


	3. This Is It

The Happiest Place on Earth

Ch. 3 – This Is It

Three hours later, Natasha Romanoff had Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes each by a shirt sleeve with Sam Wilson bringing up the rear to the elevator. She would never admit it in a million years, even under every KGB torture imaginable, but Natasha had enjoyed the arcade. Okay, so she had played one round of House of the Dead II… All right, maybe she had beaten the game… Now, she was exasperated, exhausted, and hungry enough to eat a car tire. She pushed the elevator button with her heel, carefully, and herded her motley collection into the lift. Steve and Bucky each had hold of multiple prizes, including stuffed animals, two light-up extendable swords, and an mp3 plug-in speaker. She didn't want to know what exactly they had done to get those. Sam had a rather impressive remote-controlled car under one arm. As for Natasha herself, well… She had dropped the gigantic Minnie Mouse she had won for top tickets in the lap of a surprised little girl with a little note that said "From Black Widow, Avenger."

"I don't know what you three were thinking," she continued lecturing the boys. "I'm not even going to ask… I just know exactly who I'm blaming when Director Fury has a boot up all our asses when we get back."

The three fearsome fighting men turned overgrown children shrugged and scuffed their shoes on the floor. They knew she wasn't _really _angry, but she had to pretend at least for long enough to say that she had given them what-for. After two floors, the elevator stopped and Natasha had to stop Steve and Sam from distractedly getting off at the wrong floor. They were joined by the two teenage girls from earlier, who seemed to be in the middle of a heated discussion. At least the names involved were Japanese, but Natasha didn't recognize the rest of the content.

"Sorry, we got off at the wrong floor!" said the taller of the two, holding the one still carrying the bear off her at arm's length.

Natasha nodded, trying to step back from the smaller one – she looked mildly explosive.

"We're on the Monorail floor!" went the smaller one. It was unclear to whom she might be talking, other than the taller girl beside her. "Where are y'all at?"

Natasha watched the buttons on the elevator. Steve looked like he wanted to answer. Sam glanced at his room key, since he didn't actually know. Bucky just looked confused. The taller girl, with sandy brown-blonde hair and red T-shirt, looked annoyed with the smaller one.

"Nicole, you can't just go bugging people!" she groused, looking like she wished the elevator would drop on them.

Nicole, the one carrying the bear, stuck her tongue out.

"But we're at _Disneyworld!_" she retorted, her voice shooting up to a disconcerting volume at the end. "People are normally so friendly!"

The taller one looked embarrassed, but Steve had to crack a smile as he looked down at his room key.

"Huh," he intoned in half-feigned surprise. "It looks like we're on the Monorail floor too!"

Nicole hugged her bear harder and made an excited noise as she bounced up and down.

"It's our Sweet Sixteen trip!" she informed them, now spinning rapidly in circles.

None of them knew rightly how to respond to her, but she seemed harmless enough. Steve, ever the brave one, leaned back on the elevator wall and smiled at her.

"Is this your sister?" he asked, nodding at the girl in the red T-shirt.

At being addressed, the small brunette blushed almost purple, but grinned brilliantly, showing braces with lavender bands on them.

"Well, kinda…" she told them, extending the _I_ in _kinda_. "Ashley and I have been best friends since we were four, so pretty much, yeah! But this is the first time we've ever been to Disneyworld together…"

Steve nudged Bucky in the side with his elbow – the other man made a grumpy noise.

"Well, we've never been at all!" Steve told the teenager.

He couldn't tell from her response if that had been a very good thing to say or the exact opposite. Her eyes bugged wide behind red plastic-framed glasses and she swept the dirty khaki bucket hat off her head, clutching it along with her bear. The jumping up and down had now reached just-this-side of rocket-launch speed and intensity. Her kinda-sister just looked like she wanted to melt into the floor and burble away.

"I am so sorry!" the taller one broke in. "She always does this…"

Now, even Bucky had to look at the rather spastic teenager – she looked almost like she might cry.

"Oh… my… GAWD!" she yelled, filling the elevator once again with sound. The two enhanced soldiers covered their ears while Natasha swore out loud in Russian. Sam dealt with louder than this with his family at church on Sundays, so he just studied his RC car. Nicole took a deep breath and…

Well, really only Steve, Bucky, and the other teenager could follow her after that. Steve had never met someone who spoke without punctuation before. Bucky could only tell what she was saying with his souped-up hearing. The other girl had, apparently, been doing this for a while. At least every third word out of the glittering, braces-filled mouth was "Disney." Nicole had switched her bear and hat to one arm so that she could punctuate this dizzying tornado of words with her free hand. After a stretch of time matched only by tip-top opera singers and Julie Andrews, she took a deep breath. Her face had gone quite red and now she squashed and stretched her rib cage like a bagpipe.

"Well, if you want to know anything else about Disneyworld, just ask me!" she followed up with that same somewhat-rattled smile. "I've been memorizing the Birnbaum guides since I was five…"

She looked somewhat shy, as if she had just admitted some big secret, and hid behind her bear's head.

"I'm Ashley, by the way," the taller girl waved half-heartedly, looking like she shared Natasha's headache. "And I've been stuck in the car with her for six hours."

Finally, Natasha had something to relate back to as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

"I've been driving these… fine gentlemen for about thirteen," she had to stop herself from saying something really foul in either Russian or English or about ten other languages. "I'm Natasha."

They all piled out of the elevator and let a couple of families get on.

"Steve." He reached out to shake both girls' hands. "That's Bucky."

The brown-haired man rolled his eyes.

"You know, I remember when you couldn't even look at girls," he deadpanned.

Sam snorted behind the RC car's box.

"And I'm Sam," he told them; "Nice to meet you, ladies!"

Both girls shook hands in return.

"Well, we promised to be back in fifteen minutes and we're…" Nicole pulled out a cell phone and hit a button. "Yeah… kinda ten minutes late already."

Nicole grabbed Ashley's hand and dragged her off, presumably in the direction of their room – both girls waved over their shoulders.

"Well, that was interesting," commented Natasha. "Seemed like nice girls, though."

For the first time this trip, Bucky spoke up without anyone nudging him.

"They kinda remind me of somebody," he remarked enigmatically. "But I can't for the life of me figure out who…"

Sylvie and the second bellhop had indeed brought the bags up to the room. Natasha smiled at seeing the spare room key set carefully by the television. The set had been turned on and the cheerful soundtrack of a Silly Symphonies cartoon tinkled from the speakers. Natasha grabbed her purple duffel bag and set it in the chair that had just become "her" chair. Steve immediately plopped down on one of the queen-size beds. Bucky checked the door that looked out of place and discovered that Fury had been generous, booking adjoining rooms for them. He set out to explore the room that would be his and, he assumed, Steve's for the next six days. Sam stepped out on the balcony and quickly retreated from it.

"I think I just got assaulted by seagulls," he grumbled.

"People feed them," Natasha informed him without missing a beat. "Just don't go out there with anything edible."

Bucky had sat down next to Steve and he looked around, still appearing to be incredibly puzzled by everything around him.

"So… what happens now?" he asked everyone in general.

Sam had gone back to his park guidebook and began perusing it with a bit more purpose than he had before, seating himself in the other chair.

"Well, it looks like the place to go first is Magic Kingdom…"

Natasha shook her head.

"So that's exactly what we're not doing…" she decided. Everyone stared at her, so she followed that with, "… Cos it seems like we should save the best for last."

Natasha Romanoff had so many layers to her… None of the men present could ever understand what the Magic Kingdom meant to her. Growing up Soviet, it wasn't like she had never known what Disney was. Brave souls had risked life and limb – some of them she had iced in her teens – to bring the magic of Mickey Mouse cartoons and pixie dust and princesses behind the Iron Curtain. She had seen brief glimpses of the animated wonder, but never let herself wish for it. No one could ever say Natasha Romanoff had such ridiculous dreams, not when she was such a harsh, practical realist. However… now that it was _here_, it brought some things to the surface that she never thought she would deal with. She looked out their room window at the Castle on the not-too-distant horizon. Nothing she had ever done could prepare her for the feelings, however brief, that made her heart twinge just a bit. Even in the secret-est secret depths of the KGB and SHIELD, everyone knew the Mouse had changed the world.

'_But what the hell can he do for me?_' she thought, shaking her head at the iconic structure.

"You okay, 'Tash?" Steve's voice broke into her thoughts.

Sam flicked through a few more pages.

"Animal Kingdom looks like it's got a lot to see," he remarked, studying the page that had the family of lions on it. "It's like a zoo with thrill rides."

Natasha snapped instantly out of it and yoinked the book from Sam.

"Ooh,_ Festival of the Lion King_ looks good," she told the room at large, snickering. "I wonder how Steve and Bucky would look as these flying monkey guys!"

The two in question looked over at the picture she pointed to. About six young men in a still photograph obviously just this side of flew on a staged set of uneven bars. They were clad in head-to-toe bright yellow unitards with tufts of almost indecently orange fur on bits of them and long tails. Steve turned a shade of red that suggested most of his face might bruise and he pinched Natasha lightly. She shoved him back across Bucky, who grunted in protest and shook his head at the picture. Sam took a good look at the photo in the book and laughed out loud.

"I don't think it's your color, Steve – you're better in the classic red, white, and blue!" he teased the super soldier.

"Give me the regular uniform any day," grumbled Bucky, pushing the book out of his face and then taking it in his own hands. He flipped through another couple pages. "Hey, Steve – I think you wanted to go on this one!"

Careful to hold the book in his still-human hand, he held it up to Steve's face.

"Oh yeah, _Kali River Rapids_ – it was on the billboard," the blonde responded, taking hold of the book so Bucky could put his hand back in his pocket. "Water rides are the best!"

Sam flipped through a couple things on his phone.

"Well, from my little cousin's pictures, then, y'all are gonna want to go on _Splash Mountain_ when we make it over to the Magic Kingdom," he told them, holding up the phone.

Steve and Bucky looked at the picture of a gap-toothed little girl in a pink Minnie Mouse T-shirt with her hands over her head – she was obviously screaming her head off in delight.

"Say, she's cute as can be, Sam," Steve told Sam, tilting his head and grinning the grin he reserved for particularly adorable children and Bucky screwing up his nouns. He looked around at everyone. "So, we start at Animal Kingdom and work our way in?"

Natasha nodded – it was as easy as anything else.

"That's why you're the Captain," she prodded him.

A companionable silence fell over the four as the three men followed Natasha's gaze back out of the plate glass window in the sliding door. At nearly five in the afternoon, the sun had lit up everything in gold as it played with heading for the western sky. Even with as out of touch as Steve and Bucky could be, they could not help but realize they were in the presence of something world-altering. Nothing here could be the same as it was out there in the real world. Steve had always, in the back of his mind, believed in magic. Bucky had always tried his best not to, but nothing could quite shut off the mental voice he had telling him that something about this place would change him forever. Hopefully, it would be a whole hell of a lot better than that Barton asshole's idea of "cognitive recalibration."

"So…" Natasha broke the silence, for once feeling very awkward around these men that she had taken so long to actually consider her _friends_. "Where do we go for dinner?"

Steve and Bucky looked at each other – they could go back and forth on anything for ages, debating. Sam shrugged. He could eat just about anything anytime. Natasha took her phone out, quickly downloaded the Disney app, and started scanning through the list of restaurants. She came to the Contempo Café – just your basic burgers and sandwiches with some flatbread options. Out of curiosity – he still didn't quite get the whole cell phone thing – Bucky leaned over her shoulder. The little screen still sort of baffled him, but he could read the menu.

"Yeah, I could go for a burger," he said to no one in particular.

Everyone sort of looked at him funny, wondering how a man could puke like he did and still scarf down a burger.

"I'm good with some nachos," Steve decided, appropriating Natasha's phone. "Buck, you want some too?"

The brunette nodded before getting up to go look at the Magic Kingdom through the balcony door.

"Ooh… Those ribs look good," Sam studied the app on his own cell phone.

Natasha remarked on her desire for the Tokyo Sushi Sampler, earning wrinkled noses and noises of mild disgust from Steve and Bucky. Where they were from, people still called that _bait._ Sam took a pen and Contemporary-logo pad of paper from the desk and scribbled down everybody's preferences. Natasha unfolded herself from her chair and it seemed everyone was going down to the Café. Ordering up was listed as an option, but they wanted to see more of the resort.

"Everybody got a room key?" the redhead asked everyone.

Steve patted the wallet in his back pocket, nodding. Bucky had his tucked into his jacket pocket. Everyone privately wished that he would take that thing off before he collapsed of heat exhaustion. Nazi war experiment or not, Florida heat could do just about anybody in. Sam tossed his T-shirt and swapped it for the worst Hawaiian shirt he could find on the top of his suitcase. Everyone rolled their eyes and they headed for the door. As seemed to be usual, there were about half a dozen people standing around the elevator bank, waiting for the lift. From quite a long way away, they could see the becoming-familiar heads, one strawberry-blonde and the other sort of brunette under a bucket hat. Nicole had left the teddy bear behind this time and intermittently poked Ashley in the side. The taller girl administered swats in return, but the girls seemed to be having a good time.

"'Evening, ladies!" Steve called, waving a large arm in their direction and almost smacking Bucky in the face. "Heading down for some dinner?"

Nicole seemed to nearly jump out of her skin at being addressed again. Rolling her eyes, Ashley shoved the smaller girl lightly. Both of them smiled – one cheerfully and one this side of maniacally, as they replied in the affirmative. Nicole seemed not to do much but squeak. Sam stuck his hand out and both of them shook it. This time, making sure to keep his left hand jammed deeply in his pocket, Bucky offered his right hand. He shook hands with the girls silently, but couldn't help smiling at them. They seemed to be doing this whole "Disney" thing exactly right. For as much as Ashley pretended to be intensely annoyed with Nicole, they were both having the times of their lives. The odd part, to him, was that it seemed to come from them just being there.


	4. Get Your Own Cheese

The Happiest Place on Earth

Ch. 4 – Get Your Own Cheese

Steve, Bucky, Natasha, and Sam all piled onto the elevator with Nicole and Ashley and the other happy, hot and tired people heading down for either dinner or a second go in the parks. Nicole had not lost an ounce of her seemingly boundless energy, still bouncing on the balls of her feet. Sam leaned on the wall and pushed the elevator button before moving out of the way for another lady. Natasha found herself smiling at the two teenage girls in a way she had not expected from herself. Sometimes, things got real faster than anyone ever intended them to. If she allowed herself to think about it, maybe it was like she saw what she could have been in those two happy girls. Obviously, neither of them had ever shot anybody, although it looked like Nicole could throw a decent punch if she wanted to! Ashley looked like the kind of girl nobody really messed with.

Steve and Bucky had engaged the teenagers in conversation. Well, okay, if they were honest, it was Bucky standing there with his hands jammed in his pockets and Steve trying to listen. Nicole hadn't let up on the rapid-fire information vomit that dazzled the average person. The "I know everything there is to know about Disney" did not seem to be an exaggeration now that she had an outlet for it. Ashley, for as irritated as she pretended to be, smiled at movie references and shared in inside jokes. For some inexplicable reason, the girls seemed fixated on the not-quite-word "meep." It could be a response to nearly anything! One conversation went in a language that sounded almost like it was their own.

"Go to meep!" Nicole peeped at Ashley.

"You first!" the sandy-blonde girl fired back.

Bucky and Steve exchanged a smile that had been waiting the better part of five decades and punches on the arm. Steve's punch landed with more of a clanking noise than the sound of knuckles bonking into flesh and muscle. For a flash, both men looked mortified. The teenage girls looked curious. Natasha's ears perked up and Sam watched the situation carefully. No one other than them had seemed to notice the unusual noise.

"Plated jacket," grunted Bucky.

Everyone seemed to be fine with this answer and Nicole reverted back to her Disney chatter as the elevator descended. It stopped at other floors to let other people on and fairly soon the elevator was too crowded for Nicole to talk with her hands as she so obviously preferred. Ashley pulled her out of the way of getting stood on by a curvy Cuban lady with three grade-school-age children. The two little girls had tight, protective holds on their little brother. Their dad stood nearby, smiling at his family. Next second, the elevator stopped one more time and everyone pushed back to let in a young couple. Nicole looked positively enamored with the looks the two gave each other. The next floor down was the level for the Contempo Café. With the _ding, _the doors opened and the flux of people poured out.

"We're going to the Contempo Café for dinner," Nicole informed the group she had adopted as her Disney posse, as she had put it. "Want to come with us?"

"Nicole, you can't just ask people that!" Ashley scolded her. She pushed Nicole's shoulder to make her point. "I'm sorry about her… She has no filter!"

This time, Natasha's face split into a genuine smile.

"No, not at all!" she reassured the girls. "We were actually headed that way ourselves, and we'd love to join you. Even I'm a bit out of my depth here."

The two girls looked at her in curiosity.

"I was never much of a Disney kid growing up," explained the redhead, hoping she didn't sound too incredibly wistful. That's how it sounded to her… "But you two seem to really have everything together!"

This answer seemed to satisfy everyone, and the group trailed briskly after Nicole, who had apparently appointed herself party leader. Ashley had to trot to keep up with the shorter girl, but the Avengers party kept up easily. The young Egyptian man behind the Contempo Café's counter smiled and waved at their approach. Nicole broke into a little run, dragging Ashley behind her, and both of the girls ordered nachos. They got them within a minute and scooted off to hold a table for their impromptu party. Bucky and Steve were next, getting the same as the girls. They followed quickly with their plastic containers of nachos. Natasha looked more relieved than humanly possible when she received her sushi and scurried over to the table to join the rest. Everyone heard Sam exclaim over the ribs as he made his way to the table as well.

The Disney magic seemed to be doing its thing already, as the light dinner conversation came easily to all parties involved. Short of a few squawks from overtired small children, the atmosphere of the café felt relaxing, inviting, and totally safe. Even Bucky didn't feel the need to sit with his back squished against the nearest wall. He smiled a bit before biting into his burger with enough gusto that it made Natasha wrinkle her nose. Grease squirted in several directions and melted cheese dripped off the sides as lettuce fell everywhere. Steve crunched on his nachos and swiped Bucky's fries after every third or fourth chip, dipping the fried potatoes in nacho cheese-esque goop. Sam had stolen Natasha's wasabi blob to smear across his ribs, insisting no one could make them spicy enough.

"I watched a guy eat a whole one of those once!" Nicole chimed in, causing everyone to cringe.

"That wasn't a challenge, you know," Ashley reminded her in a tone that suggested she had witnessed that exact thing as the immediate result.

"Well, I know that _now_," groused the brunette, reaching across the table to dip her nacho in Ashley's cheese.

Yelping, Ashley yanked her plastic nacho container away, looking affronted.

"Get your own cheese!" she hollered, crunching quite deliberately into a chip.

No one was entirely sure why, but for some reason, this line came across as just life-threateningly funny to everyone within immediate earshot. Steve shot out one arm and caught Nicole as she tumbled sideways off her barstool-height seat. Ashley leaned forward, laughing like a hyena and pounding on the table with one fist. Sam just threw his head back and let off a bark akin to a large and very happy dog. Natasha snorted ungracefully and cursed in Urdu at the bite of pickled ginger that had lodged itself quite suddenly and with great force in her nasal passage. She shook her head, blew her nose, and laughed along with everyone else. Bucky had his right hand over his mouth, but his shoulders shook unmistakably. Sure no one's eyes were on him, he enacted his quickly-made plan. A flash of silver, a nacho chip, and then he had snagged himself some cheese.

"Get your own cheese!" bellowed Steve.

Everyone's eyes shot wide, and then the laughter redoubled. This time, Bucky almost flung himself backwards off his seat, positively howling. In this movement, his carefully-held jacket slid up his metal arm. For the first few moments, no one noticed. Steve laughed until tears streamed down his face, his cheeks tomato-red and his mouth open like a Golden Retriever's. Sam just about screamed his head off, still just about dying laughing. Even Natasha kept snorting like Sandra Bullock in _Miss Congeniality_ as her cheeks turned pink and she laughed at herself for the sound. When Bucky went for the cheese one more time to be told "GET YOUR OWN CHEESE" again, silver flashed once more.

"Wow!" yelled Nicole, her voice doing that thing where it shot up disturbingly in volume and pitch again. "That is so freaking cool! What is that?"

For a second, Bucky looked around like he had no idea what she was talking about. When the moment of realization dawned on him, his face went ashen. Steve turned quite pale as well. Natasha's eyes narrowed and Sam began to scarf his ribs down as fast as he could. You did not waste ribs, not even when the former Winter Soldier might be about to have an explosive episode. However, when Bucky saw the look on Nicole's face, he looked more confused than anything else. She stared with her eyes wide behind her glasses, but her braced teeth were visible in a huge smile. Ashley looked as well, but more cautiously.

"Holy Toledo!" Nicole exclaimed again. "That is _wild_! Can… Can I see that?"

Bucky looked at her delighted face, and then looked down at his metal hand.

"This?" he asked unnecessarily, blinking as if he had never seen it before either.

She nodded enthusiastically and shot out a hand for examination purposes when he extended his arm toward her.

"That is freaking amazing!" she kept going, looking the hand and wrist over and over.

Ashley had gone pale around the face too, but not out of fear.

"_Nicole!_ What is the effing matter with you!" she almost yelled. "You just cannot _do _things like that!"

She turned to Bucky and waved her hands back and forth.

"I am so sorry, sir," she told him, trying to yank Nicole's hands away. "She just doesn't get some things. I'm so sorry for her bugging you."

For a second, Bucky stared at her like he didn't understand the language she spoke.

"No…" he said vaguely. "She's fine."

He watched her examining the metal hand. Far from being afraid – she looked like she had never seen something so interesting in her entire life! The teenager looked up at him, turned as red as Mickey Mouse's pants, and let go very quickly.

"Oh man! I'm so sorry!" she all but screamed. "I just… Wow… I didn't even think… I never do anything right… That was so far out of it… Wow…"

She looked as if she might cry for a couple of seconds when Bucky tilted his head at her.

"It's okay," he told her quietly. "But… I mean… You aren't afraid?"

All of a sudden, both girls scrunched up their faces.

"My mom taught me way better than that!" Nicole told him flat-out. "I just think it's cool looking! There was a dude with one kinda like this at DragonCon last year."

For a moment, everyone just sort of sat there awkwardly. Only the sound of Sam chomping on his ribs broke the tense silence. Ashley looked once more like she wanted to melt into the floor and remove herself as far from this situation as possible. Steve surveyed the situation carefully. He looked at Natasha two seats to his left as she stared intently at Bucky over a chunk of tuna in her chopsticks. Then his eyes darted over to Bucky on his right. Yes, it was very much time to make his move. The super soldier waited for two more seconds to be sure he had it exactly right. Next moment, his chip advanced…

"GET YOUR OWN CHEESE!" hollered Bucky, nearly up-ending the bottle of ketchup as he yanked his nachos in the other direction.

The sudden bellow from the former Winter Soldier silenced the entire café.

"… Pfft!" went Natasha.

All of a sudden, all eyes were on the redhead in the tight jeans and sweat-stained T-shirt. She had looked quite mad for some time now. Her hair stood almost on end in the Florida humidity. Anything resembling makeup had melted off by the time they passed Port Royal, South Carolina. Gone were the usual kick-your-ass boots; replaced by dirty pink Converse low-riders. And there she sat, a bit of tuna still clutched in shaking chopsticks, laughing her shapely ass off. Nearly screaming, tears pouring from her eyes, she wrapped her other arm around her midsection. The stitch that accompanied her hysterical laughter did nothing to drown out the snorts and squeaks.

Steve's jaw dropped with his nacho plus Bucky's stolen cheese halfway to it. Sam's chewing slowed to a halt, the bite still in his mouth. Ashley had no idea how to react to anything. Nicole had brightened back up and started to giggle as well. However, nobody could predict how Bucky was going to lose his mind and join in Natasha's level of complete and total mirth. He had his metal arm thrown around Steve's shoulder, the embarrassment of having the thing at all forgotten. Soon, he had his human arm draped on the table, his face hidden in his elbow. The position half-pulled Steve with him, causing the super soldier to make an _erk_ noise. Families looked over at the six-person group in dismay at the noisy disturbance. Nicole had joined in as soon as her giggles got the better of her. She leaned on Ashley's shoulder, laughing until she cried and drooling as she did so because of the braces.

"Get your own cheese…" everyone kept saying, and every time it got said, the laughter started again.


End file.
